Chapter 1. Alarm Bells ring
New York
“Ben here,” he said as he answered his cell phone.
“Ben we have a problem.” Replied the voice on the other end.
Ben sighed, “you had better to be calling me on a Sunday. What is the problem Tom?”
“I think you should come into the office. This isn’t something we can talk about over the phone.”
Ben had been working with Tom for four years now. He had known Tom for over eight. The two of them had been in the FBI and had worked on several cases together. Now Ben was the head of security and Tom was his right hand. “I will be there in 45 minutes,” he replied. He quickly changed into a suit. The entire time he was changing, he wondered what could be wrong. Tom had an almost scared tone to his voice. He decided the best bet was to get there as fast as he could.
He arrived at the office just thirty-six minutes after he had received the call. Walking thru the door Tom met him as he got off the elevator. “Ok, what’s so important?”
“We got a major hit on the web site today.”
“What? If it crashed why didn’t you call the IT guys?”
“Not that kind of hit. Someone accessed the website not unusual there. Then our little snooper went to work. Took it a while to dig thru the mountain of junk. But there it was.”
“There what was?” Ben asked as he entered his office.
“Leon’s files.”
Ben froze halfway around his desk. “what do you mean Leon’s files?” Ben asked although he was fairly sure he knew what Tom meant.
“You remember Leon he was murdered two years ago. Well his files are on the network of the person who hit our site.”
“Oh Shit!”
“There’s more. She, well it appears to be a she. Anyway, she has been snooping the web for information about Leon seems she has dug up quite a bit about him.”
“Ok,” he said as he continued around and sat behind his desk “here is what I want. I want a complete list of what files she has. Followed by a complete profile of who she is. I want everything you got it.”
Tom handed him a manila file folder, “here is the list of all the files we have found so far. I am still waiting on her background. Should have it with in the hour though.”
“Good job let me know as soon as you have it. I need to make some decisions on how to handle this.”
“One more thing you should know. She seems to work for a database programming company. At least the network and computers she uses do.”
“Where are they located?”
“Santa Rosa, California.”
“Where exactly is that?”
“About 60 miles north of San Francisco.”
“Alright. Let’s get in touch with some of our guys in LA. I want a full team there in four hours. Tell them to contact me the moment the hit the ground there.”
“Will do” said Tom as he turned and headed out the door to make the calls.
A knot began to form in the pit of Ben’s stomach. How did she get those files? For 2 years those files had dropped off the face of the earth, and now there they were. In the worst place possible, at a database developer. Calm down he thought it couldn’t be too bad or they wouldn’t have gone looking on the web for the company.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. As he did he wondered if he should call Carl Avery, the CEO, or should he wait until he had more information. Carl like to be kept in know about security stuff. He blew a major gasket when Leon died, and for good reasons. If those files and that data fell into the wrong hands all hell would fall on them. Well now it seemed they had. He reached for the phone. Then he stopped his hand just inches from it. The phone seemed to be red hot. Slowly he picked it up. Listening for a dial tone he punched the number. The phone was answered on the second ring.
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